Recent Comments

ruffin: Losing access to digital artifacts is now a very real possibility, and has some serious repercussions for the public domain. When Matt references the "virtual read more

fluffy bunny: Online activation is getting increasingly popular, and when the servers go down (which they will, eventually), we will no longer be able to unlock the read more

roushimsx: I've got nothing against digital distribution, but do have beef with MMOs that require you to play on company-controlled servers. Maybe I'm just extremely bitter read more

John Andersen: The biggest issue I see is just how some publishers have completely lost sight at how to preserve their own games not only with just read more

Merus: I'm not sure how this differs from consoles, where once the console breaks down or is no longer sold the physical medium can't be played. read more

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So, after my recent post on GameTap adding a bunch of Neo Geo titles, I got a really interesting email from Matt Matthews, he of Curmudgeon Gamer fame, and he kindly allowed me to share our email conversation here on GSW, because it's pertinent to game preservation, and he makes some good points. Opinions on the below?

Matt: "Can you please explain (in 50 words or less) why you're so hip on GameTap?I I thought you might have had an interest in making sure archives of digital works would exist far into the future. However, I assumed that you'd be on the side of making sure those archives were not purely commercial in nature.

That is, if we could be guaranteed that GameTap would be around for 200 years, then fine. We'd have time for laws and technology to change to the point that people could probably back up or reverse engineer the games on GameTap for archival purposes independent of GameTap. But as it is, once that service shuts down (and I think it's a given that it will, perhaps even in the next five years) then how are we to keep copies of [games such as] Sam & Max for future analysis and study? Or any other game that they publish in pay-to-play format?"

[Click through for more curmudgeoning!]

Simon "I just like them because they make old, interesting games available legally. It's as simple as that. There will still be ROMs and standalone copies of these games (Sam & Max is coming out as a standalone digital download too, and at retail, don't forget). Sure, there are some exceptions like Uru, but that needs a server to exist anyhow.

Are you being a Curmudgeon? :) What do you think they are doing wrong? It's not possible that old games would just be available for free, because companies can monetize them. We have to wait for the public domain to kick in for that."

Matt: "Perhaps a bit of a curmudgeon, but more importantly a person who likes being able to purchase copies of media. Do we know that [all the games GameTap offers exclusively on their service] will be untethered? The lesson of Half-life 2 and other Steam-linked products is that you may find yourself dependent on the service for authentication -- either now or in a few years when you want to revisit a game -- even if the game itself doesn't require anything online.

That's what my friend/co-blogger Ruffin calls the virtual rare book room, and it's a reasonable analogy I think. There is a gatekeeper who stands between you and things that you (think you) own (in the instance of, say, a public university where the people ostensibly own the library's holdings).

It reminds me of the security/freedom exchange often attributed to Benjamin Franklin. Something along the lines of "He who would sacrifice essential right of ownership for a little convenience deserves neither."

I'm not asking for the games to be free -- short of a revolution overthrowing the U.S. government and then a new constitution with reasonable copyright laws, I'll never see any game fall into the public domain because it's copyright expired. I'm asking that people who study or value games as a medium be allowed to purchase copies of them -- as we do with almost every other medium such as audiovisual media and music, even sculpture -- be allowed to actually own a copy of those games.

I can do this with almost everything on GameTap, I confess. Archivists can (and should) purchase originals of arcade games and console games and Windows/DOS games and others as often as they can. But the model that GameTap and Steam and XBLA and PSN and other services represent is one in which the company always stands between you and your game, ready to exact a toll if they can work out a way to do it. That gatekeeper is one I cannot abide."

Simon: "I think it's much more of a problem for Steam (potentially) than GameTap, because the point of GameTap is that you can ALREADY buy physical versions of most of the games. The only game on GameTap that you can't get ROMs of (less than legally) or buy carts/boards/discs of is Uru Online, and that wouldn't even be running without GameTap's help at this point. I guess you say that further down your commentary, though."

Matt: "Just to be clear, this is the slippery slope we're on right now. Boiling the frog, foot in the door, whatever analogy you want to use. If we relinquish our interest in owning copies of things we *could* get in physical form, then the natural next step for a publisher is to skip the physical copy altogether (in the name of cutting costs, sold as a benefit to the consumer) and offer only virtual copies.

Those virtual copies will likely include tethers to some home server which will be justified as a means to easily, seamlessly patch the game and offer extensions to the original game. As we've seen with Xbox Live, however, the model will then be used to sell (e.g.) map packs for Gears of War. The first hit's free, to throw in yet another needlessly trite analogy.

Finally, let me say that there are other areas which have struggled with precisely this problem. Academic journals can be accessed through the web, provided your university buys a subscription. As soon as the online subscription costs aren't paid, all that knowledge is walled off. Compare with paper copies which are obviously less convenient, but permanent ownership of knowledge. You can guess which I'd prefer *in the long term*."

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5 Comments

I'm not sure how this differs from consoles, where once the console breaks down or is no longer sold the physical medium can't be played.

Of course, my biggest peeve with GameTap is that they lock up the service to US and Canadia only.

The biggest issue I see is just how some publishers have completely lost sight at how to preserve their own games not only with just the simple source code, but also in just putting their title release history online for other potential licensees to browse. These potential licensees and publishing partners could see exactly what games they could port to retail. A lot of games, well, no one know who owns what anymore! You have all sorts of issues with rights, of each different version, etc, etc.

What's worse, employees of game publishers come and go, new employees come in and are completely unaware of just how valuable previous game releases have been at their new company. The other horrible inevitability is a company going bankrupt, and its assets are put on paper for another company to acquire, while the source code, historical sales records, marketing artwork materials, game staff credits, all that history is thrown away, lost or misplaced.

You sometimes see this happening in the motion picture industry, but overall studios take good care of their films and all accompanying materials in vaults. We get our DVD releases and are happy most of the time.

With games, services like Gametap, the Wii Virtual Console, XBLA, etc give a whole new opportunity for a game to preserved. Sales numbers will speak for themselves, developers will see potential for sequels or new releases on other formats. You'll see games from these services that may get a "best of" release for the PC, or other consoles AFTER a Gametap or XBLA release. Thus, a game is allowed to be preserved for one person to hold in their hands.

I applaud other companies like Sega, Taito, Midway, Activision, Intellivision, Nintendo, EA, SNK-Playmore, Namco, Tecmo, Atari (am I missing others?) who keep seeing value in all of their classic IP and preserve it the best they can over time by re-releasing them on next-gen compilations I can put on my shelf, and grab whenever I want to play it.

The fact that my 8-year old niece enjoys Ice Climber, a 1986 NES game that she still plays today on her Gameboy Micro from the NES Classic Series, says a lot. She wants something easy, simple and fun to play. There will always be value in these games, just like there will always be a value in a piece of music, motion picture, artwork, etc no matter how old it is.

To make more people in the industry realize this is the challenge. However, in the end, sales numbers and trends speak loudly. Others will hear the name of a game and say "Oh, that's too old!"

To lose track of these games in any way, shape or form would be tragic. At least services like GameTap (and the people apart of operating these services) give these games an opportunity and another life - to at least have an opportunity to be re-released again on other consoles and new media in retail.

I've got nothing against digital distribution, but do have beef with MMOs that require you to play on company-controlled servers. Maybe I'm just extremely bitter over not being able to play Motor City Online anymore, though.

Hell, maybe I'm just bitter that they decided to shoehorn it into a MMO instead of just making NFS:Motor City as originally intended. Either way, unless some extremely talented parties get involved in writing a custom server (unlikely!) or the game gets licensed by another company (even less likely!), I've got a completely useless piece of plastic sitting in my cd binder between Moto Racer and Myth: The Fallen Lords.

Online activation is getting increasingly popular, and when the servers go down (which they will, eventually), we will no longer be able to unlock the games. This will happen to a majority of the casual games and indy releases. I expect some of them (the most popular) will be cracked, but most will eventually just become useless install-files.

Multiplayer is also a problem. More and more games seem to use central servers, which will eventually be shut down, and leave the nostalgics among us with the single-player experiences only.

It might not happen within the nearest future, but I would like to believe that I'll still be interested in games in 20 years (just as I was interested in them 20 years ago), and I have to admit I doubt I'll be able to unlock my copy of Gish or play TrackMania online in 20 years time.

Losing access to digital artifacts is now a very real possibility, and has some serious repercussions for the public domain. When Matt references the "virtual rare book room," he only starts to suggest how content locked on someone's servers is a pretty big deal -- imo, it's the beginning of the careful obsolescence of copyright.